Catching up on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the news. Question, is the news still necessary? Or relevant?

Remembering Italy

I had an opportunity today to have lunch with a long time friend, Keith. He was in Tallahassee for work this week and we took the opportunity to get together and catch up from the past two years.

We were able to catch up on our families, mutual friends and big trips we’ve both been on since we last saw each other. Keith took his family to Alaska to sleep with the bears! He has a history with the wilds and bears of Alaska as he spent a summer as a ranger in the Wood Tikchik State Park.

I reminisced about my trip with Lisa to Italy in 2006. We spend two weeks in Italy visiting Piacenza, Florence, Siena and Rome. By far it was the best time of my life.  We went to her best friends wedding.  Steve and Mari were married in Piacenza, Italy. 

It was nice to see Keith and catch up on our lives.

Blogging from my phone

This won’t be much of a blog, but I am writing it on my phone so that is unique. I have a HTC Touch Pro which is sprint’s answer to the iPhone. This phone contains a full keyboard which is nice and a lot of other cool features and it is also a great phone.

The geek in me

Years ago I became a fan of Doctor Who.  Broken into short programs, each full episode was shown in four segments and therefore took almost a week to watch.

The Tardis

A quick aside…during the several years of watching Doctor Who, I was introduced into an extremely corny yet interesting five minute show called Star Gazer with Jack Horkheimer. Star Gazer has been in weekly production since 1976, and has produced over 1,500 episodes as of September 2006.  It was actually part of the fun of watching Doctor Who.

To me, Doctor Who was always Tom Baker.  I admit that I liked the shows where one or more of the older Doctors joined Tom Baker, but truly he was the “man” or better said, he was “the Time Lord”.  I kept that opinion until the end of the first season of the revived Doctor Who in 2006.  Christopher Eccleston won me over by the end of the season.  Then they decided to bring in another new doctor, a string bean of a guy, David Tennant.  I was determined NOT to like this guy since I felt like the show which I liked so much had already abandoned thier new direction with a cool, hip doctor.

I was stubborn, I was going to refuse to like the 10th Doctor, and the second season of the show except for Rose Tyler (Billie Piper).  Little did I know that David Tennant would become MY Doctor Who! He was funny, quirky, unique and played the role like no other.  He was the best and now he is leaving the show after four more episodes.  Too bad!  I will refuse to like the 11th Doctor although I’m sure I will eventually like him, but I doubt he will take the place of David Tennant, THE Doctor Who.

See some of the thoughts on the future of the Doctor Who show -http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/a134251/cult-spy-the-doctors-regenerations.html

A quiet, fulfilling evening helping others

Lisa and I spent a relaxing evening tonight with friends eating Mexican food, sharing updates on our lives and re-loaning our funds through www.kiva.org.  A group of 13 people from Tallahassee (Lending Hands of Tallahassee) started our own micro-lending group in November of 2007. 

If you don’t know about Kiva, you should check it out.  It allows you to help real people that need some assistance. About Kiva…

KIVA.ORG

We Let You Loan to the Working Poor

Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

The people you see on Kiva’s site are real individuals in need of funding – not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs’ profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

Kiva partners with existing expert microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva, our partners upload their entrepreneur profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them. When you do, not only do you get a unique experience connecting to a specific entrepreneur on the other side of the planet, but our microfinance partners can do more of what they do, more efficiently.

Kiva provides a data-rich, transparent lending platform. We are constantly working to make the system more transparent to show how money flows throughout the entire cycle, and what effect it has on the people and institutions lending it, borrowing it, and managing it along the way. To do this, we are using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Child sponsorship has always been a high overhead business. Kiva creates a similar interpersonal connection at much lower costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery. The individuals featured on our website are real people who need a loan and are waiting for socially-minded individuals like you to lend them money.

We were able to loan to 20+ people tonight from all over the world and get together with our friends.

Moving ahead with our wedding plans

Winery and back of The Red Bar

Lisa and I decided on the place where we will get married, the Winery at the Red Bar.  We visited there again on Friday, took some photos, asked some questions and then booked the venue.  And we made a lot of progress on our other weding plans as we prepare for the big day on April 18, 2009…we picked and ordered the wedding cake and Lisa ordered her wedding dress. 

The venue is the Winery at the Red Bar located in the trendy MidTown area of Tallahassee.  The Winery is currently expanding and adding a small tapas style restaurant allowing them to serve food also.  Lisa and I will be going back to the Winery in the next month of so to make our own batch of wine for our wedding guests.

Lisa found the dress of her dreams at The New Image in Thomasville, Georgia.  Obviously I can’t write much about her dress since I haven’t seen it but she loves it and Lindsey and Kaitlyn think it looks great.

We found our cake at Tasty Pastry Bakery and ordered it.

Things are coming together for our big day April 18.

 

 

The Winery at the Red Bar The Winery at the Red Bar

Site Visit to the Greenbrier

2008 09 08_0957.jpg

Originally uploaded by Ned Campbell

Here is a photo of the north entrance from the Greenbrier, one of the most wonderful hotels in the United States.

I was lucky enough to visit the Greenbrier on a brief site inspection prior to taking the FICPA membership there in June 2009. The hotel is incredible! With a glorious history and the once dark secret of a bunker to house the US government in case of nuclear war with Russia.

The hotel still sticks to the old south traditions with dressing for dinner and the wonderful “sleepy time” signs throughout the hotel from 8pm to 8 am.

Hurricane Season 2008

With Tropical Storm Fay gone after dumping more than 20 inches of rain on the east coast of Florida and along the entire northern part of the state.  Gustav missed Florida altogether.  Now three storms in a row are lined up to potentially impact Florida. 

A view from the International Space Station at Hurricane Ike which is a very powerful storm. 

http://www.cnn.com/video/savp/evp/?loc=dom&vid=/video/weather/2008/09/04/vos.ts.ike.space.cnn